This site is going offline. My hosting provider raised the monthly rate from $7.99 a month to $13.99 a month. I will consider bringing it back online and hosting it from home, but for now, PaulandEmily.com is going offline – that includes the Gallery pages as well. I have everything downloaded and backed up, but who knows when I will have time to restore it all to a new server. The gallery especially is really old software so getting it to run on a modern operating system may not be feasible or doable.
So probably sometime in august 2018, this site will “go dark”.
-pc

I had a customized theme on the website previously, one that I made hand-edits on back in 2005 or 2006. Forgot about that, and went on updating the site’s themes and plugins. I broke something, so this theme may be temporary until I figure out what I did. Whoops.
–pc

Anyone check our site anymore? I’ve considered coming back to here from facebook. Just didn’t know if we had an audience anymore.
I’ve gotten closer to fixing the gallery so we can post to it again too.

While we celebrated Sean’s 5th birthday in our house, we decided to make this his first birthday where he got to invite friends from school, the neighborhood, and church. We opted out of the home party and went to Jumpzone in Florence, KY. My mom came into town and really helped out. The kids spent the night at my mother-in-laws house friday night and we got to try out a Cinci landmark, Terry’s Turf House. Amazing burgers, but a tad loud inside due to the lack of space. Its one of those joints where we sat at a six top table and there were only three in our party. Part way through our meal and had another couple sit with us. Kind of awkward but we actually ended talking with them and exchanging great local restaurant info.
Back to Sean’s bday- he had a mixed bunch of kids from his life and it was a ton of fun. VERY hectic. Jumpzone is basically a nice-ified warehouse that has those huge air-filled slide/jump things. Our kids have been there a handful of times and just run themselves ragged. As did his friends on Saturday! It was a really a great time for the kids. Parents are usually pretty bored there and they REALLY rush you after your party is over because the next party is booked five minute after yours.
After all the hubbub was done, we decided to have the local family over for dinner since my mom was in town. My mom hasn’t had one of my “steak dinners”, so I decided to go all out and we had bacon wrapped fillets, asparagus, bearnaise sauce, mixed vegetables, sweet baby peas, and parmesan rissoto. We had appetizers too 🙂 shrimp and a couple of cheese and cracker plates.
Saturday morning, Emily did want to run a 5K run in cincy with some our our church friends but we missed the registration so we went to a local church and my mom, emily and I ran a 5k (actually 3.25-3.5 mi) to make up for it! I hope to make it a normal Saturday think – at least until the weather is nicer and I can get back to the track.
Mom had to leave early because the weather got weird today. We weren’t sure if a snow storm was coming or not and I think Lillian may have another ear infection – hope it isn’t time to get more tubes! Will be going to the doctor tomorrow I think.

We had some snow this weekend and the kids got to go sledding. Lillian LOVES to throw “snowballs” at anyone around her – so watching! She won’t sneak up on you though, because she loves to yell “IIIIII got you!” before she attacks.

We went sledding in the front yard too!

And made snow angels!
(Sean made one too, but wouldn’t stand for a photo)

I had planned on writing a long blog post about Christmas and all the other fun things that went on in December, but I lost my mojo on it. It was a special Christmas – Sean came down form St. Paul and my mom and sister were able to come in from St. Louis. This was the first time I’ve seen Megan since last Christmas! I can’t tell you when the last time that happened! Unfortunately, the weather was predicted to get bad so they were not able to stay as long as they hoped.
Oh, we also had an extra house guest this time – and I don’t think Uncle Sean will be able to visit without her, or face the wrath of my kids – he brought his cat, Pinky:
Megan go to spend time with her first neice, megabyte:
And her Niece 2.0:
Uncle Sean got plenty of time with the kids (to the point where I think he was just about ready to go back to St. Louis and St. Paul maybe even a little early – potty training time with Lillian can over power the weak!):
Lillian even shared her new princess hat with me:
But probably only because she got this really cool winter hat that she loves to wear:

Heinz and Colleen sent the photos they had from our Thanksgiving trip. I’ve added them to the gallery – click here! They start about half way down on that page. Great shots of the kids feeding Uncle Art’s horses.
Love spending time up there. Can’t wait to go back. Two week vacation this coming summer for Emily’s sister’s wedding is going to be AWESOME!

So for Thanksgiving this year, we did something that Emily has never done in her whole life – we went to her dad and Colleen’s house in NY. Normally we bounce between St. Louis at my Mom’s and staying in Cinci with family coming into town. It was a long long trip, but quite fun! The weather held out until the very last day. We took a few pics, although we should have taken more (Emily’s dad took some so we will get a copy of those):
We left the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving and stayed in a hotel north of Erie, PA. It was Lillian’s first time staying in a hotel and she was NOT interested in going to sleep..at 1145pm. I rocked her until around 130am and she finally went to sleep.

We did the usual camp stuff – walked in the woods, road the four wheelers, etc. We got to visit with Emily’s Uncle Bob (a car enthusiast – Audi TT RS, so I got some car talk in) and Aunt Sue. Thanksgiving was delicious – stuffing with sausage in it? YUM! While we were up there, My good friend from college, Adam B. and his wife Kim drove up to visit friday – saturday. Haven’t seem him in years and it was our first time meeting Kim.

I also tried a local vodka made in Lake Placid, NY by Lake Placid Spirits called P3. This is bar-none the smoothest vodka I have ever had. So much so that when I poured it in a glass over ice, Emily actually asked me if I had watered it down! The final filtration process uses garnet! they have another vodka called 46 peaks that is filtered over diamonds. Only problem – its ONLY sold in New York!

Big thanks to my mom for lending us the Orange Honda Element for the trip!!

I flew to Minneapolis/St. Paul for my birthday this year to spend with Sean. Again, didn’t take many photos, but there will be other opportunities. We hung around his apartment a lot (because I had to work 🙁 )but we got out to the Mall of America, Best Buy Corp offices, I at a Juicy Lucy called Spanish Fly (Yum!), went to the mill district and took some photos, and we had our Birthday dinner at Manny’s Chophouse (where the maitre’d called Sean … my …”partner”. what? business partner right? hmmm). I made a small album of the photos taken. Most are from the mill district that has some “ruins” from the original mill infrastructure from the late 1800’s/ early 1900’s. Photos are not in any order because we took some with my cell phone using both normal and HDR mode; and others with my camera (well, Sean took most of those). Gallery:

We are doing Christmas in Cinci this year and I think My mom, Megan (and matt?), and Sean are coming down for that. I don’t think I have seen Megan and Matt since Christmas last year! Crazy! Will get pics up when that rolls around.

I took the pics off my cell phone from September and put them in a gallery:
Its not much – will try to pull anything down from Emily’s phone later. Also have some better quality pics on Brian’s camera of the trick-or-treaters.

I put two video’s I randomly took of Lillian, up to YouTube. Click me I was messing with the video recorder on my phone and switched it to the forward facing camera. Piqued her interest 🙂

I ordered a T-shirt from TurboJunky on August 23rd of this year during my lunch break. I should have googled the company first because there are a number of bad reviews for them. Anyway according to the FAQ on their website:

How long will it take for my order to ship?
Once an order has been placed your order will be processed and shipped within 1-3 business days.
How long does it take for my order to arrive?
Domestic orders are shipped via USPS Priority Mail (2-5 business days). International shipments via USPS Express mail or FedEx and usually take about 3-10 business days.
*(Weather conditions, holidays, or incorrect shipping information can delay shipments)

A few minutes after I received the payment confirmation email, I received an order confirmation for this shirt:
$4.99 plus $4.00 shipping. On August 31st, I hadn’t received any update to my order so I filled out the form on their website asking for an update. For some reason my account on their site isn’t working so I was unable to login there and view the details. Maybe I didn’t create an account. I’m not 100% sure on that. Never heard back.

On September 5th, I shot an email to moe@turbojunky.com and executive187@gmail.com (the email address I received a form confirmation from). Never heard back.

On September 10th, I posted to their Facebook page asking where my order was. I also sent a private message via Facebook to Moe Lufti who is listed as the owner-operator. TurboJunky posted a reply to my Wall post that it “will arrive shortly i am very sorry for the delay we are extremely backed up”. I replied asking for a tracking number and to define shortly. Never heard back.

One September 17th, I received an email notification that my item shipped. Thank God. His operation runs out of California so shipping via first class USPS or UPS ground should take 5 to 7 business days. Today is October 1st and it is exactly two weeks since the shipped notice. Nothing. I replied to the shipped notice this morning (sending to both the gmail and turbo junky account) and re-posted to my comment on the TruboJunky.com Facebook wall. I’ll bet I don’t hear back from them.

I should have paid with a credit card instead of a debit card, but in all my internet transactions, I honestly can’t recall a bad experience that didn’t eventually get resolved. If you google “turbojunky.com scam” there are currently 967 results and “turbojunky.com order problems” results in 3,630 results. I read through a number of forum posts where people either didn’t get their order, only got part of their order, or the order was wrong. Not only that, but the Better Business Bureau rates them as an “F”.

Isn’t this the stuff law suits are made for? I think I may spend a couple nights looking into that. Or talking to my father-in-law (he’s a lawyer). May contact the local sheriff as well. I did have one experience back in 2001 or 2002 where a guy took some money for aftermarket car parts in a “group buy” and we got him arrested. That was for more than an $5 tshirt though.